♪♪♪ Bienvenidos a Las Vegas!

-Bienvenidos a Las Vegas.

Welcome to Las Vegas.

I'm Maria Silva, and it is my honor to be your tour guide.

I know a thing or two about this fabulous city.

You see, the Silva's first arrived in Las Vegas way back in August of 1981 from Mexico by way of El Paso, Texas.

Back then the Latino and Hispanic population in Las Vegas was in the single digits.

Today, it's more than 34%.

There is so much rich history when it comes to our vibrant Latino community, history many may not know.

Do you know what our city's name, Las Vegas, means?

Don't feel bad.

You're not alone.

More on that important history lesson in just a bit.

But first, did you know that a Latino greenlit one of the most iconic slogans in the entire world?

Manuel "Manny" Cortez was the first Latino to serve as president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

(Manuel Cortez) Over the next five years, Las Vegas will change more than it has in any other time in its history.

As a result, the way we market Las Vegas must change as well.

-What happens here stays here.

-Hmm.

Not in this case, Elvis.

This is important Vegas history we want all of you to know.

So before we head off to a special event on the world famous Las Vegas Strip, we are heading back to school for a very important history lesson.

Vamonos.

-Viva, viva Las Vegas!

-Our first stop at the Bienvenidos a Las Vegas tour, Southeast Career Technical Academy, SECTA for short.

It was also known as Vo-Tech when I attended many, many years ago.

Our Vegas fun fact: On March 25, 1968, KLVX Channel 10, now known as Vegas PBS, went on the air broadcasting out of, you guessed it, Vo-Tech.

The school sits on top of the Whitney Mesa Nature Preserve.

Just below, you will find a mile marker honoring Rafael Rivera.

It's here overlooking beautiful Las Vegas where I met up with one of the most trusted historians when it comes to Latinos in Las Vegas.

Mr. Thomas Rodriguez, who's also quite the expert on Rafael Rivera's journey.

(Thomas Rodriguez) He came to Whitney Mesa, because the diary basically says he could see the Mount Charleston and the Spring Mountains and the wash. And you know, the green part of it, of course, was the wash.

So he decided that's the way I want to go.

-Tom, we're back at school for a very important history lesson.

-All right.

Let's do it.

-Let's talk about this 18-year-old Mexican scout, Rafael Rivera.

He comes here.

He's on that mesa overlooking all that beauty.

He is credited with giving us our name Las Vegas.

-Yeah.

Well, you know that's not unusual that he called it Las Vegas, because that means meadows.

And he was looking at a green wash.

It's still green to this day.

-So Las Vegas, the name, how did it get passed down?

How again, through the journal?

How did people-- -No.

Just word of mouth.

People kept using the Old Spanish Trail, and Las Vegas itself really wasn't settled until-- it became a city in 1905.

So it wasn't like there were thousands of people here.

But there were people going through back and forth to California.

And they had to call it something.

Las Vegas.

-Tell me a little bit about Hispanic Profiles In Nevada History: 1829-1991.

-Well, you know, one of the reasons we wrote that book, Dr. Miranda, Tony Miranda and I wrote it, is the historical neglect for things Hispanic.

There's so many history books.

I went to the library when I first came to Las Vegas trying to find something on Latinos.

Nothing.

-Nothing.

-I mean, nothing.

And over the years I've written six books about the Latino experience in Nevada.

-In your book you wrote, "The exciting exploits of Rafael Rivera have gone relatively unnoticed and unrewarded, and he has not been given his rightful place in the story of man's epic struggle to explore and settle the West."

-Yeah.

You know, it's sad because that diary, Armijo's diary, was in Mexico City in Spanish.

And it stayed there for 120 years till somebody discovered it, translated it, and then we learned about Raphael Rivera.

-And explain to us who Armijo was.

-Armijo was a trader.

He took blankets, all kind of things to California, and then he traded that for livestock.

Drove the livestock back to New Mexico and, you know, for meat and everything else.

He had had several other attempts to find a route to California, the Escalante party, party Escalante.

They didn't make it.

They were going.

They came at the wrong time of year.

Armijo had enough sense to come in the winter when it wasn't so hot.

And so, you know, he put together a group of 60 people.

They left Abiquiu, New Mexico, and that's how they got here.

-And Rafael Rivera just ventured off on his own?

-Well, that's sort of what happened.

On Christmas day, they sent out a reconnaissance party.

And on the 29th, that party came back to the main group, but Rivera was missing.

And Armijo in his diary said, "Citizen Rivera is lost."

-Oh.

-And so he kept sending out recon parties to see if they could find him.

I mean, by then that guy was long gone, you know.

And you know, it's a remarkable story, Maria.

I don't know what you were doing at 18 years old, but I was just getting out of high school.

-Exactly.

-This is an 18-year-old kid.

He's traveling alone.

They thought he was lost.

He's traveling alone into uncharted territory.

There were Indian tribes here that had never seen a white man.

And he traveled all the way.

It ended up being 506 miles, 13 days all the way to Barstow, California.

And it's like, My God!

You know, what an adventure, right?

And so, yeah, you know, he deserves recognition.

I think we've helped him get it.

You got the Rafael Rivera Center, Community Center, and you got the Rafael Rivera Way as you go over by Durango off of 215.

-We need to talk a little bit about that.

Because at the very beginning, I remember when they first put that up, they misspelled his name.

They spelled Raphael with a p-h. -Yeah.

I remember picking up the phone and calling Mayor Goodman--Oscar Goodman, not the wife--and complaining.

I didn't get to talk to Oscar, but I, I know him.

But I talked to his secretary.

I said, Listen, you guys messed up with that name.

And next thing I know, they're changing it correctly, and that's the correct spelling now.

-With the history books, again, I learned about John C. Fremont in school, but I didn't hear about Rafael Rivera.

There have been some skeptics, historians, who have said, have doubted that he was the first non Native American to step foot here in Las Vegas.

-Let me tell you.

John Fremont, Jedediah Smith, they were famous explorers.

They weren't anywhere close to Las Vegas.

So the only recorded history anywhere was the Armijo party and Rafael Rivera.

And that's just history.

That's fact.

If I have to believe the legend or not, I'm gonna believe the legend.

Okay?

You know, I think Rivera has gotten at some meaningful level his, his place in history.

-Since your book was written, because in here you said more needed to be done.

-Yeah.

You know, I got to credit the Rafael Rivera Monument Committee because Larry Luna was his teacher in the Clark County School District, and he was trying to do the same thing I was doing.

He just wasn't a writer.

So they did manage to get that sign, that historical marker put up.

-Let's talk about that mile marker.

The location needs to change, right?

-I think I'm committed to writing a letter.

I don't know to who, I guess the Historical Society, but it really belongs where we were, because people get that.

If they see the valley like Rivera saw it, it makes a big difference.

And so I'm hoping, I'm hoping somebody listens.

-It is breathtaking to see from up here.

-Yeah, of course it is.

You know, that's the thing with history.

It's always there.

But if nobody records it, it almost sort of doesn't exist.

Like this guy here, the Altube brothers.

They had the largest ranching empire in the state ever, ever in the state of Nevada.

This is L.C.

Garcia.

He was a master saddle maker, and he won the World's Fair.

At the Word's Fair, he won.

This is Rosie Winters.

She helped, her and her husband helped discover the borax fields in Death Valley.

-You have some interesting ones in here, because this is a fascinating book.

Again, this is the entire state of Nevada, which is wonderful because there's a gentleman who's also credited with being like the first to create a resort.

-Yeah.

Bony, Bony Aguilar.

Bony was a character.

You might just call it a character.

People thought he was kind of nuts, eccentric, but he was near these hotsprings.

And so Boney was an entrepreneur of sorts.

So he decided, hey, I'll turn this into a mini resort, and I'll have food there and some gambling there.

It became a feature there for a long time.

He was the first gaming entrepreneur Nevada has ever had.

But nobody knows who Bony is, really, until this book came out.

-What needs to be done so our stories are told in history books.

-Our kids need to value history.

And so few of them do.

Tomorrow, I give my annual speech to the Latino Youth Leadership Conference that is now in its 30th year.

Well, one of the things we do the first day of that conference, it's a six-day conference, we teach them about their history.

Most of them never heard of the Chicano movement.

They don't know the history.

They don't even know who Cesar Chavez was.

And so, you know, we try to give them a quick history lesson.

And we talked about these books and everything.

-Let's talk about your legacy and how it lives on here in Las Vegas.

You recently had a very beautiful honor bestowed upon you.

Tell us about that.

-Yeah.

This committee, they're building a huge complex, a half a billion dollar complex called the Uncommons.

My name was given to them by UNLV, my friends there.

And so I get a phone call and says, Mr. Rodriguez, we're planning to name a street after you--and explained where it was going to be and everything--are you agreeable that?

Well, yeah, sure.

You know, it's a compliment.

-What an honor.

-Yeah, a real honor.

-And it's not too far from Rafael Rivera Way.

-Right.

My legacy, though, I think is the Latina Youth Leadership and my books.

-Thank you.

-30 years is quite an accomplishment.

We've had thousands of kids go there.

There's probably six members of the legislature went through that program.

I still go places, and-- this happened about a month ago.

I turned around.

Mr. Rodriguez, do you remember me?

And I said, Well, I remember your face.

I don't remember your name.

Said, I went through the Latino Youth Leadership, and it changed my life.

And I'm like, what else, what else can you ask from life?

-Before I leave you, I do want you to read something that's very special in your profile of Hispanics in Nevada.

-"Hispanic people are a large and fast-growing segment of the multicultural mosaic we call America.

We belong here and have earned our stay by helping to build this country, by planting and harvesting it's crops, by toiling in its factories, by helping to build its railroads, and by giving our lives to defend it.

We are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.

We are people who have suffered and who have endured.

We are teachers, doctors, lawyers, farm workers, janitors, waiters, actors, models, musicians, and gardeners.

We are every man.

And like everyone else who claims this country as his home, we are Americans.

Somos Americanos."

♪♪♪ -Somos Americanos.

Something else Mr. Rodriguez said really stuck with me.

He said, "That's the thing with history.

It's always there.

But if nobody records it, it almost sort of doesn't exist."

Making sure the history of 150 Latinos living in Southern Nevada was recorded, the next generation of historians.

It's here at the UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives reading room, where I met up with fellow UNLV grad, Laurents Banuelos-Benitez.

Laurents was part of the student-led oral history project Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada.

Under the direction of Claytee White, Director of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries.

And let's talk about the ones that you did work on.

Name some of the people that you've got to interview, that you had the honor of sitting next to.

(Laurents Banuelos-Benitez) So I definitely got to sit in on a couple of great interesting interviews.

Tony Sanchez, who is with Nevada Energy, was a fantastic person to talk to.

He told this wonderful story of how his name was Americanized as he was growing up.

His father is actually Anthony or Antonio.

But when it came to naming him, his father decided to name him Tony to Americanize his name because that was a way of survival for our community.

If our names were too Latino or too Spanish, there was this fear that we would be hindered by our names.

-But my story is one of assimilation, because when I was born, my dad obviously grew up speaking Spanish in the household.

But by the time I was born, my dad said that only English would be spoken, which is very common, especially back in the '60s.

And so I would have been the sixth Antonio Francisco Sanchez.

But because what was drilled in my dad's head, I became the first Anthony Francis Sanchez.

Why does that make me so emotional?

That's interesting.

So what's the first thing I did when I had my first son?

He became Antonio Francisco Sanchez.

-I interviewed one of my professors here at UNLV, Sergio Checko Salgado.

He, when I was talking to him, I discovered that we had both gone to the same middle school.

Right?

And he told me stories about the neighborhood I grew up in years before I was even born.

And so getting to hear of how my neighborhood transformed from Checko's time to when I grew up and knew it was an amazing experience.

(Sergio Salgado) I just did an exhibition in honor of 28th Street because it was one of the first centers of Latino hub.

I've known a lot of families now, especially with this exhibition, they came there and started there on that street.

And they've gone on to become really successful.

I mean, there's doctors, people in law enforcement, people in construction, really successful careers.

That's where their families came from.

-Our main tool during this project was a recorder that we have up here front.

What we did with them, we turned them on, we put them away somewhere where they weren't front and center with our interviewees so they wouldn't think about them, and tried to get people to relax and comfortable and talk like they were talking to a friend.

-A very important woman who was also here, Liliam Lujan Hickey.

Tell me about her story.

-Another pioneer.

She was one of the first women elected to Nevada Board State of Education.

So she was a pioneer for education for Latinos here in the state.

That's why she has her school named after her as well.

(Liliam Lujan Hickey) One is Bob Bailey, which is a middle school and my dear friend Bob Bailey, Liliam Lujan Hickey is Elementary, and Sunrise Mountain is the high school.

And those three schools are in what I consider the concept for the occasion to put in the mind of the children that they have to go elementary, middle school, and high school.

And that's my village.

-The Latino community is everywhere in Las Vegas.

You can't look anywhere without seeing our influence.

Thomas & Mack is such a big part of UNLV.

That was designed by the, by a pair of Latino Cuban architects.

And that's something we don't talk about.

So one of the other first interviews that we did was with Peter James Guzman.

He is the current leader of the Latino Chamber of Commerce.

He is a great advocate for our community as well.

(Peter James Guzman) And so Otto is a giant to me.

I'm grateful that he created such a wonderful organization that I got to step into and, in my opinion, take it to another level, which is not a knock on anybody.

It's what he wanted.

He said to me, Peter, I expect and I want-- this is my legacy.

It's only gonna survive if you take it to where I know you can take it.

That's why I want you to do this.

And so that's what I feel we've done.

-You can't really talk about Las Vegas without talking boxing as well.

I'm a big boxing fan.

I grew up watching boxing with my parents.

In my family, it was always a big event.

The early days of watching Oscar De La Hoya, hearing stories.

-Julio Cesar Chavez.

-Julio Cesar Chavez, hearing those stories from my dad.

So one that I really loved to do was when I got to sit down with legendary boxing referee Joe Cortez.

-Canelo Alvarez, I refereed him against Josesito Lopez.

September 2012 was my last fight as a referee.

Still top of my game, but when I got inducted to the Hall of Fame with Julio Cesar Chavez, Mike Tyson, Sylvester Stallone, Kostya Tszyu, and Nacho Beristain, I said to myself, I'm on top of my game.

I want to go out on top.

I don't want to be pushed out.

-Your lovely wife was also involved in the project.

-Yes, she was.

So my wife was also involved in the project.

We were both graduate students at the time, and she got to do a bunch of interviews.

So in fact, one of her favorite ones and that often comes up in conversation is her interview with Alex De Castroverde from the De Castroverde Group, another prominent Cuban family here.

-Their dad.

-Their dad started that law firm, which now Alex and his brother run.

One of her favorite parts of that interview with Alex was hearing about their father's involvement with the Bay of Pigs.

Was involved in that part of history, which is, you know, as a history lover, it's amazing to think that we have had someone here in the community who was involved with such a major part of history.

(Alex De Castroverde) During the negotiations between Fidel Castro and the Kennedy administration to release these inmates who were trained by the CIA, my father was asked to serve in the negotiations committee.

So two times he was released from prison and flew to the United States, along with seven other prisoners, and relay the offers that Fidel Castro was requiring in exchange for the release.

And each time, he voluntarily flew back to Cuba to go back to prison.

The second time that he went to the United States in Washington, D.C., they were aware-- it became evident that the negotiations weren't going to be successful.

As a result, two of the inmates decided to stay in the United States and say, I'm not going back to be a political prisoner in Cuba.

But my dad, he flew back both times and went back to prison.

As a result, he was admired by the Cuban American community, certainly by his inmates, for not abandoning them.

But eventually, they were released.

Eventually, the negotiations worked.

-We do talk about all these wonderful community members who contributed so much.

You know, they're so important to our story here in Southern Nevada, but we also have those unsung heroes.

-Yes, absolutely.

So we did sit down, and we interviewed about, I believe, about 25 of the Culinary Union workers.

And we got to hear about the strike stories and when they protested, because a lot of them are immigrants and coming from different circumstances from their home countries in search of a better life.

-You mentioned sharing the stories and their struggles to get to the United States of America for a better life.

One of them that's really special that we have here, they're all very special in their own right, but it's this one, an interview with Maria Benitez.

Tell me who she is.

-So Maria Benitez is my mother.

And when we started this project, they told us that, yes, we wanted to get all our leaders or all the prominent names, but we also wanted to get our unsung heroes.

And as a team of students, we decided that our parents were our unsung heroes, and we wanted to include them in this project.

So my mother and my father are both in this project.

My mother has a wonderful story of leaving El Salvador when she was actually younger than I am now, which blows my mind when I think about it.

She left the Salvadoran Civil War, which was a brutal horrific war, caused a lot of violence and death.

[Interview of Maria Benitez] -And the wonderful thing about this project is that these people get to share their stories, and they get to be archived.

Because the purpose of this project was to archive as many stories as possible, to give a snapshot of the Latino community in Las Vegas in the time when we did this, for future researchers so we could have documentaries be made or more books written like what Tom Rodriguez did.

This, our hope was when we put this project together, that future researchers, future filmmakers could come down and use this as a jumping point when they tell the story of our community in the city.

When it comes to the Latino community, the black community, our histories a lot of the times aren't written down.

They're passed down orally.

And unfortunately, that makes them really easy to lose.

-And a lot of times they're not included in history books.

-And not included in history books that are included in the classrooms.

So projects like this are vital for the history of our community.

-Did you have a role model?

Is there somebody-- -No.

I didn't have no role model.

I was me.

I just rebel without a cause, but I did everything I want in life.

-Rebels make it happen.

Being back on the campus of UNLV, a bit emotional.

You see, like so many immigrants and children of immigrants, I am a proud first generation graduate.

With 32% of UNLV's students identifying as Latino or Hispanic, UNLV is one of the most diverse universities in the entire country.

Fun fact: In 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked UNLV as a nation's most diverse university for undergraduates.

We are heading off to meet a fellow Rebel at a neighborhood near and dear to my heart.

The inspirational stories of Latino community leaders being retold to younger generations at the schools which bear their names.

Namesakes include some of the community leaders we've already told you about, like Liliam Lujan Hickey, Arturo Cambeiro, and Manny Cortez, whose legacy also lives on through his daughter, Nevada US Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected to the US Senate.

Other influential Latinos, pioneers in their respective fields, include Tony Alamo, a prominent Casino Hotel executive; Dr. Ruben Diaz, a board certified pediatric pulmonologist; and Edmundo "Eddie" Escobedo, founder of El Mundo, the oldest Spanish language newspaper in Nevada.

Some of these schools located in and around East Las Vegas, a predominantly Latino neighborhood located less than 10 miles from the Las Vegas Strip.

This neighborhood is also known as a Rafael Rivera neighborhood.

It's where you will find a community center and park named in his honor.

Fun fact: The 11-foot high bronze Rafael Rivera statue, which now sits in front of the community center, once welcomed guests to the Old Vegas amusement park on Boulder Highway in Henderson.

Not too far from this community center you will find the East Las Vegas Community Center.

It's where I met up with Councilwoman Olivia Diaz who not only represents the district, she was born and raised in Las Vegas, her parents from Durango, Mexico.

In 2019, Councilwoman Diaz made history becoming the first Latina elected to the Las Vegas City Council.

♪♪♪ (Olivia Diaz) Welcome to Ward 3, and this is where all of the excitement happens for our comunidad here on the east side of Las Vegas.

-Bienvenidos a East Las Vegas!

-We both grew up here in East Las Vegas.

You live here in this ward.

What are you hoping for this area?

There is a push right now, the revitalization of East Las Vegas.

-We are in probably the more, most historic parts of the city.

Like downtown near the railroad tracks was probably where the anchor was at the very beginning of, at the very infancy of the city.

But as you move eastbound, we are basically the very first communities.

There was no such thing as masterplan back in the '50s, '60s, '70s, when our neighborhoods were being built.

So obviously, we've missed a few things, right?

Planning and development has really come to a different level.

And I just want to come back and make sure that we're still taking care of this area, that we still all feel a lot of pride and joy to live here, that we receive the same amenities and access to things that other communities enjoy.

We have a ways to go.

-Yeah.

-We don't have all the open spaces that we need.

We don't have all the sidewalk infrastructure, because sometimes that wasn't spelled out in development.

But we're gonna get there.

-And we are already seeing improvements.

I mean, this beautiful community center, the East Las Vegas Community Center.

-Yeah.

So actually, the East Las Vegas Community Center just turned 20 years old, and we gave it much needed love.

Every now and again, we'll celebrate September 16, which is a big to-do for the community.

It's the Mexican Independence.

And so, with the Mexican Consulate, we come and we do the celebration El Grito, hence why we have that wonderful bell back there.

And now we actually have something that is ceremonial to that whole protocol that every year the Mexican president does in his backyard, but now we have the ability to kind of simulate something locally as well.

I want the community to know that this is their space, their space to bring their children, to learn ballet folklorico.

-An important thing to note is that this area was designated as Rafael Rivera neighborhood.

We have the Rafael Rivera Community Center, the Rafael Rivera Park.

-If you really look at the entirety of the city of Las Vegas, until Rafael Rivera Community Center was opened, we really didn't have any point of reference of anything Latino.

It gives us at least a figure for, I think, our youth to identify, especially with the name Rafael Rivera.

Going through school, we didn't really hear too much about anyone that kind of mirrored our background or we could make a connection to.

So I totally applaud that they made that step forward as a city here, not too far from where this community center sits now.

-There are two nonprofits in there right now.

-The Immigrant Home Foundation, led by Luz Marina Mosquera, she has been doing amazing work.

She's helping people with their immigration processes, she's helping them with the citizenship classes, she's helping folks who didn't have access to an education in their home language.

For example, in Mexico, if they came here with an elementary education and they now have the time and the aspiration to finish those levels, now they can go there and finish middle school and high school.

And then we have our Dream Big Vegas.

Also our Dreamers, Astrid Silva at the helm there, and she's helping them with their DACA processes.

Wherever we're going as a nation with them, I'm just wanting them to also, you know, receive the blessing from all of us.

It would be awesome to see our Dreamers get a pathway to citizenship because they are children that we educated, that we raised, that we need.

We need them here working in our communities and as part of our workforce.

We both attended a meeting recently, a neighborhood meeting.

There is a push right now to try and find homes in our community, in this community, that are eligible to be included in the National Registry of Historic Places.

It was a little disheartening, though, that they couldn't come up--it's in initial stages--to find places to be considered landmarks or a part of the registry.

I know we talked about the Arturo Cambeiro Center for adults and then also, not too far from here, Freedom Park, where many of us spent, you know, our youth there.

That was brought up.

So many wonderful memories.

What do you think needs to be done so we do have a place here in this community as a whole.

-Um, I think we need to still continue to dig a little bit more, go to like the Tom Rodriguezes of our community who really know our history well, know the Chicana Movement, Chicano Movement, you know, Mexican American.

Because at a certain juncture, Mexican Americans were the biggest Latino population that were here in Las Vegas.

And then now increasingly, we're seeing more Cubans arrive, we're seeing more Venezuelans, more Colombians.

-Argentinians.

-Yeah.

So we're getting basically a lot of folks coming from different places in Latin America.

And so now we're a bigger, more diverse collective than we have been in the past.

-So let's talk about that beautiful mural.

It's so representative of this area and what you're trying to convey when it comes to the people of this community.

-We had the conversation with the muralist about, you know, seeing the Latino community as positive, asset driven, what we bring, who we are.

And so she came up with that amazing concept called Our Collective Strength Has No Boundaries.

It's basically a mother who's teaching her child about nature and building a nest regardless of where you are, because without nature, we can't be here.

Without building our nest, we don't have financial security down the road for our future families.

And hopefully those values are going to be transmitted to the next generation to come.

I just feel like it does capture why our parents took this leap of faith to come to the U.S. and migrate and leave family behind, leave their hometowns behind.

♪♪♪ -East Las Vegas, not the only area where you will find beautiful murals which tell a story.

Murals celebrating our culture, our city, and our sports teams.

Because, in case you didn't know, Las Vegas is now a proud sports town.

Bienvenidos a Las Vegas.

-Fun Fact: This mural celebrating Stanley Cup Champions the Vegas Golden Knights created in 24 hours by several Latino artists.

It's in the Arts District in Downtown Las Vegas where I met up with Las Vegas native, the multitalented Brian "Paco" Alvarez.

If there's someone who really knows the art and the culture in this city, it really is you.

The fact that you're an anthropologist... -One day I took an anthropology class at the college, and I fell in love.

I said, This is what I want to do, study culture.

-We have so much culture here in Las Vegas.

I think that's a big misconception when we talk about Las Vegas.

Many people say, They don't have any culture there.

-Right.

That is a huge misconception.

And I think that's a sad thing when you speak to the indigenous people that live here, the Paiutes, to say there's no art and culture when they've been here for 1,000 years-plus, and we've had human migration into this valley for over 10,000 years, there's a lot of art and culture here.

-We are here for a very specific reason.

This beautiful metal artwork back here, this sculpture.

-This is my pride and joy in Downtown Las Vegas.

It's the second most important work of art ever commissioned in Las Vegas history.

The first one is the Flashlight at UNLV.

These are site-specific works of art.

Luis Varela-Rico actually created this.

He's a local artist originally from Mexico.

His mother is very locally famous.

-Irma.

-The beauty of this sculpture is it's representative of the Paiute baskets.

The Paiutes were renowned, are renowned for their amazing baskets that they created.

And it also represents-- it's made of aluminum, and it also represents the railroad, because the railroad was just a few feet away.

So you've got this juxtaposition of aluminum and steel and the delicateness of the Paiute basket.

So we have Radial Symmetry by Luis.

-And that just makes my heart so happy because, again, it is so important to acknowledge those who came before us and who are still here.

-Yeah.

The Paiutes, we always forget about the Paiutes.

And as a tour guide and person who celebrates Las Vegas culture, every tour I ever do, I start off, The Paiutes were here first, and they're still here.

-Your family, let's talk about what brought them to fabulous Las Vegas.

-Opportunity.

My father.

My mom and dad met in New York City.

They're both from Argentina, and they fell in love three days after meeting and got married.

And my father landed a job here in Las Vegas at the Landmark hotel and brought my mom out West and my mother was horrified and they stayed here ever since.

So they've been here since 1969.

You're born and raised in Las Vegas?

It is beautiful to see so many cultures represented.

We have Afro-Latinos, we have our Argentinos, Mexicanos, Cubanos, Puerto Ricans, from Nicaragua.

-The beautiful thing about being Latino, we're not, you know, we're not homogeneous.

You know, we're over 20 different nationalities, in all the islands in the Caribbean, plus thousands of indigenous people.

And you know, you have the Incas and the Aztecs and the Mayans and the Huichol and Mazatecas, let alone all the, you know, the first peoples of Canada.

It's really rich.

I mean, we're excited.

The Americans are very rich with culture, and Las Vegas is rich with that culture.

-It truly is, and that's why I'm excited to be able to let the world know that it is here.

And you mentioned, of course, our indigenous communities who were here, but a lot of wonderful people in our own Latino community, they are embracing their indigenous history.

-Absolutely.

I think that's so important because, for so many centuries, the indigenous population were either tried to-- they tried to annihilate them or try to stamp down that culture.

They changed their religion.

They changed their names.

And now we're seeing a movement among, especially the young Latinos, embracing.

Hey, look, my family has been in Mexico City for hundreds of years, and we know we were part of the Aztecs before that.

-And I'm also noticing that artists here in town, they are also embracing their indigenous roots.

And it's in their artwork.

We're seeing it.

-That's the best thing.

I think we're seeing many young Latino artists that are-- you know, one time 30 years ago, they would paint on a wall, and they would get arrested for graffiti.

And in the Arts District, we've embraced that.

Our alleyways are free spaces for anyone to come in and just paint.

And a lot of those, those artists are people of color.

-Even here where we're at here, this mural over here, it's Fernando.

Over here, it's Tone Castle, Tony Castillo.

Get it?

Castle, Castillo?

But that one is beautiful, too.

It's so representative of the culture.

-And it's on the location-- it's on the Sombrero, which is-- that building is one of the oldest buildings in downtown.

And that has been-- it was originally a bar and then eventually it became a Mexican restaurant.

It was the oldest continuously operating Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas history.

-And how far back?

-So the building dates back to the teens.

So it's a very, very old building.

The bar was in the 1940s and 1950, too.

So we're going back.

And of course it's changed owners a little bit.

Now it's Letty's.

It's still a Mexican restaurant.

It's always been a Mexican restaurant.

-Then Sombrero, I love this.

This goes back to something else that you've done.

You've been a curator.

Also we'll talk about the Hispanic Museum in just a bit, but also for the Neon Museum.

And it made me so happy that that sign, they kept it up there.

-Yeah.

That was part-- that was an encouragement by the Neon Museum over 20 years ago when they had a program called the Living Museum program, where they would work with businesses with historic signs to help preserve those signs.

And that was the first sign that they actually preserved.

-The Hispanic Museum, you were a part of that as the curator.

-Me and Lynette Sawyer.

-Lynette Sawyer doing great work.

I had the honor of visiting it when it was open.

I spoke to her, and I'm so happy to say that she mentioned it is reopening again.

It might take a few years.

So what happened, and what needs to happen for it to be the museum we deserve here in Southern Nevada?

-You know, the Latino community, both the entertainers, the entertainment history of Latinos coming here, and also we should never forget the Afro-Latinos as well because African Americans, Afro-Latinos, are a huge integral part of being Latino.

So we have this, this vibrant culture that needs to be celebrated.

We have the Museum of the Latino that's being built in Washington, D.C. Now it's time for Las Vegas to embrace that Las Vegas is a city of opportunity for Latinos from around the world.

We need to celebrate those Latinos that came before us.

Havana was the world center of gambling.

You had Monte Carlo, but then Havana really embraced that.

But when Castro came into power, all that went away.

Where are these people going to go with their expertise in gaming?

We shouldn't forget not just those Argentinos that arrived, like my parents and tia that arrived here in the early 1960s, but also Los Uruguayos.

-Yes.

There a big-- -Los Chilenos, Los Peruanos-- -Uruguay, Chile, Peru.

-And then towards the end, the Brazillians.

-And now they each have their beautiful celebration.

There's a Caribbean festival, you know, from Uruguay they have their own festival.

El Salvador also huge community.

-You know, I think Las Vegas is ready for a Latino parade that has them all celebrating-- the tango from Argentina, Cumbia from Colombia.

-Margarita Rebollal.

She actually had Puertorriqueñna Boricua.

So passionate about the community as well.

And she had a parade back in the day.

-Yeah.

We had some great parades.

We just need to learn to keep them going.

-Bienvenidos a Las Vegas!

-It is now time for our Vegas foodie tour.

Fun Fact: Celebrity Chef Lorena Garcia, originally from Venezuela, has the distinction of being the first Latina to have a restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip.

-Hello.

I am Chef Lorena Garcia, and I am so excited to welcome you to my new restaurant, Chica, right here at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

-No doubt Las Vegas has a phenomenal culinary scene.

And behind every celebrity chef you will find hard working men and women.

According to the culinary union, 54% of its members are Latinos.

And according to the Small Business Administration, there are more than 51,000 Latino- and Hispanic-owned small businesses in Nevada.

-Bienvenidos El Mercado!

-Many of the small businesses, restaurants featuring delicious dishes from Latin American countries.

Not too far from the Strip in Downtown Las Vegas, you will find Doña Maria's Tamales, now considered the oldest Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas, a restaurant operated by three generations of the Martinez family.

So this is your son, the family tradition, [in Spanish] three generations.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

My grandma used to help us too.

She passed away, but she's still with us in spirit.

-Probably telling you, You're doing it the wrong way.

[laughter] -You just put it in there.

-Un poquito mas.

-That's okay.

My wife, she fix.

-She fix [laughter].

They're making me look bad.

-No.

You do better.

-Yeah!

-So this is a corn husk.

-Corn husk, yeah.

-They dry them out.

They dehydrate them.

And then you have to soak and clean them.

Then we put them in our little pile.

And so then after we put the pile, we'll have the masa.

And the masa is the cornmeal with the secret recipe that we can't tell you.

-You can't tell me the recipe?

No?

-Well, that depends, you know.

-So after you do the masa, a lot of people-- we're using pork here with red sauce.

-And that's the most traditional, right?

-I think it's the most popular one, but you know people have gotten really creative.

-And I love that you don't skimp, like your tamales are nice and thick.

-More meat, less masa is the logo.

-I love it.

Okay.

And then so you just put that in and then the wrapping technique is also pretty special, right?

-You got to wrap them up because once we have them like this, we steam them.

So they're steaming, and if you don't wrap them correctly, they'll open up and you don't want that.

You want to make sure you wrap them correctly.

Make sure you turn them.

-Look at that.

-The last one.

-The last one.

Oh, I get the honor.

All right.

I feel the pressure.

-No, no pressure.

-Well, abuela up there watching.

-She's gonna guide you.

-And my mama, my beautiful madrecita.

She's like, I taught you better, girl.

[in Spanish] -Down.

-Always down.

And then other side, and that's it.

[in Spanish] -You're just practicing.

You can make it.

-And so like, traditionally, in Hispanic households, you'll have the tias all sitting around and chismeando.

-Chismeando, and all the gossip in the neighborhood and the family more than anything.

Did you hear about Juanita?

Oh, my God!

[in Spanish] So that's where it becomes a tradition, that everybody sits down and makes tamales, and it's a family, it's a family occasion.

♪♪♪ -The fruits of our labor, trabajamos tanto.

-Yes.

-Que bonito quedaron.

-Oh, the beautiful Martinez family.

-Thank you.

-For me, near and dear to my heart, such wonderful memories.

I remember when you were at the old location on Charleston.

-On 10th Street and Charleston.

And then we started to growing, and we expanded over there.

Then said I had to get something so we can make our own restaurant.

And then we started to growing.

She was six years, seven years growing, and said, Dad, I want to have my restaurant.

-This location is the oldest Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas.

-Yeah.

So the restaurant was purchased in '79.

So we started on 10th and Charleston, and then we moved.

We moved here to this location in '91.

And we had our other location in '98.

But, I mean, it's been since-- I've been working in the restaurant business.

It's all I know.

I've been working since I was five.

And, you know, I used to go to Chavez Park.

We're people who are from Vegas, you know.

Went to Chavez Park and I would walk down because we used to be like a little-- I want to compare like a to-go, like you went to get the food.

My job was to put the sodas.

So I was five, and my mom would say, I need a Coke.

I need a Sprite.

And I was like working hard.

-Let's talk about the beautiful Martinez family.

Like, this is your son.

Tell me about who else was here and who's not here, because it is an expanding family.

People have gone on to, you know, do some great things as well.

-Yes.

So we have-- I have an older sister and two younger brothers.

My older sister is not here.

-Hi, Barbara.

I went to school with her.

That's how I met the Martinez family.

-Yes.

And my sister's kids are now grown.

Now they're having kids of their own.

And so one of the things I was saying is like, they, because of their hard work, they were able to go and help them go and get college degrees and move on.

And so now we have my two younger brothers, they have younger kids.

So they're still in high school, and so we're still trying to teach them the hard work and to try to reap the rewards of the hard work of their grandparents and to still be proud and show them, Hey, look, this is how we-- you have this because of these tamales right here.

-And let's talk about what she just said.

What does that mean to you?

-It means a lot.

This here means a lot to me.

I mean, it's kind of, it's crazy.

It's really something to think about how my grandpa started all this.

I think that's one of the reasons I really like working here, just to help out.

-And the legacy continues, right?

-Yes.

-Mucho orgullo, very proud of my family, all my family, everyone.

-I think they consider Las Vegas their family, Maria, because they helped so many people, so many people.

And they do it not to get the attention, which I know they don't like talking about it.

But there's so many people that they help in different ways.

Whether it's to go to school or to buy a house or a car or whatever.

So many people, you know, they will stop them and say, Thank you so much.

You guys helped us, helped us with whatever it was.

And they do it unconditionally.

And I think that's why they're blessed.

And I hope that the next generation sees like, Oh, we have to give back.

-Familia.

-Yeah.

-People feel like a home.

With happy faces and big hug for everybody, because it's our job to give the good food and good heart.

-Now, I need to say, because this is actually your grandma's recipe.

-That's correct.

-And he taught you how to make them.

-Si.

Yes.

I don't know how to make nothing, no tamales, no rice, no beans, and he show me how and I learned thanks to him.

Thank you.

-And that little six-, seven-year-old girl who said she wanted to be, you know, a businesswoman and open up her own restaurant, you did it.

So proud of you.

-And she continues to do this, and she like it.

-The American dream.

And so many of our parents came to this country to give us a better life.

And look.

-That's correct.

And we are very grateful.

-They want to do it, they can do it.

-Si se puedi, como dicen.

And let's talk about the tradition of making tamales.

It dates back all the way Mesoamerica, the Aztecs.

-Yes.

So they're-- I wasn't there.

-You were there in spirit.

-There in spirit, but they were saying, like, el maiz and the corn comes from the God.

And so that they would, you know, make things out of corn.

One of the things were tamales.

And this is a very versatile thing, and you can travel with it.

And so they would make tamales before they would go to war, and that it was like considered good luck to go into war with tamales.

So I think that was pretty cool.

It's been carried around, and it is still a tradition that people still eat them y que tengan todo los bonitos recuredos.

-Yeah, those memories.

[in Spanish] Let's talk about that.

During Christmas, Navidad, we all sit down right before we start making those tamales y no es facil, this isn't easy.

-No.

-But that's why it's become-- that's why when you make tamales at home, you have everybody, the whole family has to get involved.

You know?

[in Spanish] -Exactly, the entire family.

All right.

Real quick, tell me what we have here.

-So these are our sweet tamales.

These are the pineapple and raisins.

-Momita likes those.

-Yes.

-Go ahead, Dad.

-Chicken tamales with green salsa.

And the beef tamales with the red salsa.

Cheese tamales.

-These are the-- these are the pork ones, pork with the red sauce, and the cheese tamales.

-Cheese tamales.

Oh, my gosh.

So real quick, will you be taking over the restaurant when they get to retire and travel the world?

I know they're already traveling, which is good.

-Yes.

-Yes.

Okay, we got it on camera.

He's gonna take over.

-I'm like, stay in school.

-Yes.

-Get stuff done.

-Our baseball player.

-Yes.

-Okay.

Now, I have always felt loved and welcomed to the Martinez family, but I want to be part of the Tamale Squad.

Did I do okay?

-Yes.

-I would like to present you with the official-- -You're hired.

-I'm hired!

-You're hired, and you have your official Tamale Squad shirt.

You start on December 23.

-I'll be here before then.

Yea!

All right.

Let's eat.

Because again, after you make it, the fruits of our labor.

And while you're making it the chismosas we talked about, the jokers, the chismosas, we've been gossiping.

So let's gossip and eat.

Let's eat and gossip.

All right.

-Which one you want?

-Buen provecho Martinez family.

-One sweet one.

-Look at that.

That's what the tamale does, invokes those memories.

Look at that big smile.

Mmm.

-Bienvenidos a Las Vegas!

♪♪♪ -Bienvenidos a Las Vegas.

-Amigos, this concludes our Bienvenidos a Las Vegas tour.

We are ending here at the Las Vegas Super Congress at the Tropicana where you will find dancers from all over the world.

And that's another thing that makes our city so amazing, the fact that you will find a little salsa, a little Latin flair here on the Strip any day of the week.

Last fun fact: I used to be a backup singer for not one, but dos Latin bands way back in the day.

Boy, do I miss those days.

All right, this is it.

I hope to welcome you back to Las Vegas to be able to say Bienvenidos a Las Vegas.

But for now [in Spanish] I'm heading off to meet my friend Tito from Puerto Rico, a little salsa dancing.

Adios.

♪♪♪